[Solved] Blank screen using lightdm

jiewmeng · 2012-04-24 12:08:27

I installed lightdm and lightdm-webkit-greeter from the AUR then did sudo lightdm and got a blank screen. Whats wrong? Other things I tried:

- startx: got an error
- sudo rc.d start lightdm: blank screen too

Update: I noticed everything in lightdm.conf is commented. What do I need to uncomment/configure?

Last edited by jiewmeng (2012-05-03 10:05:14)

Gcool · 2012-04-24 12:30:10

I think you're misunderstanding the concept of a DM. Try reading the Lightdm wiki article.

jiewmeng · 2012-04-24 13:59:25

@Gcool, Imay not be a hardcore Linux, but I did read the lightdm wiki article. From what I understand, at least to get lightdm working (without the additional customization), I just need to edit rc.conf. But how do I know if I am using systemd? I believe the problem here is that everything in lightdm.conf is commented out? I think what I need is to configure it. It shows a blank screen possibly because it doesn't load any greeter or something?

Gcool · 2012-04-24 16:34:52

If you don't know if you're using systemd, you're probably not; wouldn't worry too much about that.

As things are now; when you boot your system, what do you get as a login prompt (blank screen, another DM,...)? Also consider launching lightDM by configuring it in your inittab (as specified on the wiki page).

stonix_015 · 2012-04-24 16:54:59

did you read the article about startx? https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xinitrc

jiewmeng · 2012-04-29 03:24:59

Gcool wrote:

... Also consider launching lightDM by configuring it in your inittab (as specified on the wiki page).

I just added that line to /etc/inittab, doesn't seem to change anything ...

pomhg · 2012-04-29 04:14:42

Hi jiewmeng,
Did you use lightdm from aur?
If yes,there should be at least one line not commented out in lightdm.conf in default,it is 'session-wrapper=/etc/lightdm/xsession'.
And you said you used webkit-greeter,then one more thing is to CHANGE '--with-greeter-session=lightdm-gtk-greeter' to '--with-greeter-session=lightdm-webkit-greeter' in the PKGBUILD.

jiewmeng · 2012-04-30 12:32:20

OK. I've just started from scratch again, installed xfce4, lightdm & lightdm-gtk-greeter. Added the line to `lightdm:5:respawn:/usr/sbin/lightdm > /dev/null 2>&1` to `/etc/inittab`. lightdm doesn't auto start, but adding lightdm to DAEMONS in `/etc/rc.conf` works.

Another oddity: I am seeing in my greeter (login screen) a user for "LightDM Display Manager" why is that?

tomasabril · 2012-04-30 14:36:23

A while ago I tried lightdm and got the same problem. But I just thought it wasn't mature enough and went back to gdm. I too followed the wiki. If you get it to work with inittab and webkit-greeter post here and maybe update the wiki to fix/make more clear how to do it.
Just wandering, Is anyone using lightdm right now?

pomhg · 2012-04-30 16:22:27

Not only add the line to `lightdm:5:respawn:/usr/sbin/lightdm > /dev/null 2>&1` to `/etc/inittab` but also change 'id:3:initdefault:' to 'id:5:initdefault:'
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DM

And the problem that LightDM display all users is related to the AccountsService.In the /etc/lightdm/users.conf:

# NOTE: If you have AccountsService installed on your system, then LightDM will
# use this instead and these settings will be ignored
[UserAccounts]
minimum-uid=1000
hidden-users=nobody nobody4 noaccess
hidden-shells=/bin/false /sbin/nologin

So far, I guess AccountsService doesn't deal with the 'minimum-uid=1000' very well.

tomasabril · 2012-05-02 01:30:52

I installed lightdm lightdm-gtk-greeter lightdm-webkit-greeter-bzr lightdm-unity-greeter, then did this

pomhg wrote:

Not only add the line to `lightdm:5:respawn:/usr/sbin/lightdm > /dev/null 2>&1` to `/etc/inittab` but also change 'id:3:initdefault:' to 'id:5:initdefault:'

And changing the greeter in pkgbuild of lightdm works.

But webkit-greeter is really weird and doesnt seem to work right (login)
unity-greeter crashes and respawn many times until it stops trying.

gtk-greeter is ugly and works (and "LightDM Display Manager" is in the user list)

Is there any way to change the theme?

tomasabril · 2012-05-02 02:05:52

tomasabril wrote:

Is there any way to change the theme?

Found it.
/etc/lightdm/lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf
theme-name=Adwaita
background= gnome's default (morning blue stripes)

looks much better now :-)

Last edited by tomasabril (2012-05-02 02:31:18)

Padfoot · 2012-05-02 08:08:40

When you install lightdm-gtk-greeter, the following is output to your terminal:

lightdm-gtk-greeter needs to be themed before use.
edit /etc/lightdm/lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf and add your themes to:
background
theme-name
icon-name
font-name
cursor-name

Just a friendly reminder that is is important to monitor pacman's output whenever you install/upgrade packages, as sometimes vital information is provided this way.

Also, the LightDM user appearing in the user list is simply because the user is created with an id >= 500. LightDM will autohide any user with an id <500 (ie a system id). I will suggest to the maintainer to correct this in the package, but for all those with lightdm already installed, do the following:

Restart your computer and boot into your console (this will not work from a terminal in your desktop session as the lightdm user can not be in use)

# usermod -u 499 lightdm

Of course, change the user id to and id that is unused on your system and is <500.

Reboot and the lightdm user will no longer appear in the user list

Cheers.

Last edited by Padfoot (2012-05-02 09:34:57)

tomasabril · 2012-05-02 12:36:17

Padfoot wrote:

When you install lightdm-gtk-greeter, the following is output to your terminal:

Thats the problem of installing too many things at once. Especially from the AUR because there is a lot of text going on.
Thanks for the tip.

Padfoot · 2012-05-03 09:20:07

tomasabril wrote:

Padfoot wrote:
When you install lightdm-gtk-greeter, the following is output to your terminal:
Thats the problem of installing too many things at once. Especially from the AUR because there is a lot of text going on.
Thanks for the tip.

Certainly understandable.

If you don't have a large enough scrollback set in your terminal application, I would suggest the following:

$ cat /var/log/pacman.log

Pacman's log removes the cruft and only shows the important stuff.

Cheers.

molnart · 2012-05-12 14:08:05

Padfoot wrote:

Restart your computer and boot into your console (this will not work from a terminal in your desktop session as the lightdm user can not be in use)
# usermod -u 499 lightdm
Of course, change the user id to and id that is unused on your system and is <500.
Reboot and the lightdm user will no longer appear in the user list

i have changed the UID of lightdm to 499, but LightDM still appears in the login user list. the change was OK, confirmed by the ID command

$ id lightdm
uid=499(lightdm) gid=620(lightdm) groups=620(lightdm)

Padfoot · 2012-05-13 02:41:17

molnart wrote:

Padfoot wrote:
Restart your computer and boot into your console (this will not work from a terminal in your desktop session as the lightdm user can not be in use)
# usermod -u 499 lightdm
Of course, change the user id to and id that is unused on your system and is <500.
Reboot and the lightdm user will no longer appear in the user list
i have changed the UID of lightdm to 499, but LightDM still appears in the login user list. the change was OK, confirmed by the ID command
$ id lightdm
uid=499(lightdm) gid=620(lightdm) groups=620(lightdm)

The problem is a combination of both lightdm and accountsservice. If accountsservice is installed, lightdm uses it to generate the user list. Unfortunately, a recent update resulted in accountsservice passing through uid's <500. If you are using xfce, you can remove the accountsservice dependency, other de's may require it (ie gnome) in which case, sadly you will need to wait for an update/fix to accountsservice.

Without accountsservice installed, lightdm is supposed to use /etc/lightdm/users.conf to determine which uid's not to display. It seems this file is ignored, as it is set by default to not display uid's <1000. In practice, this is not the case, lightdm defaults to no uid's < 500.

So the complete solution is to set users to be hidden to have a uid <500 and the removal of accountsservice.

Cheers.

molnart · 2012-05-18 18:29:46

Padfoot wrote:

molnart wrote:
Padfoot wrote:
Restart your computer and boot into your console (this will not work from a terminal in your desktop session as the lightdm user can not be in use)
# usermod -u 499 lightdm
Of course, change the user id to and id that is unused on your system and is <500.
Reboot and the lightdm user will no longer appear in the user list
i have changed the UID of lightdm to 499, but LightDM still appears in the login user list. the change was OK, confirmed by the ID command
$ id lightdm
uid=499(lightdm) gid=620(lightdm) groups=620(lightdm)
The problem is a combination of both lightdm and accountsservice. If accountsservice is installed, lightdm uses it to generate the user list. Unfortunately, a recent update resulted in accountsservice passing through uid's <500. If you are using xfce, you can remove the accountsservice dependency, other de's may require it (ie gnome) in which case, sadly you will need to wait for an update/fix to accountsservice.
Without accountsservice installed, lightdm is supposed to use /etc/lightdm/users.conf to determine which uid's not to display. It seems this file is ignored, as it is set by default to not display uid's <1000. In practice, this is not the case, lightdm defaults to no uid's < 500.
So the complete solution is to set users to be hidden to have a uid <500 and the removal of accountsservice.
Cheers.

the UID issue in AccountsService 0.6.21-1 is fixed know, the LightDM user is not showing up anymore

Arch Linux

#1 2012-04-24 12:08:27

[Solved] Blank screen using lightdm

#2 2012-04-24 12:30:10

Re: [Solved] Blank screen using lightdm

#3 2012-04-24 13:59:25

Re: [Solved] Blank screen using lightdm

#4 2012-04-24 16:34:52

Re: [Solved] Blank screen using lightdm

#5 2012-04-24 16:54:59

Re: [Solved] Blank screen using lightdm

#6 2012-04-29 03:24:59

Re: [Solved] Blank screen using lightdm

#7 2012-04-29 04:14:42

Re: [Solved] Blank screen using lightdm

#8 2012-04-30 12:32:20

Re: [Solved] Blank screen using lightdm

#9 2012-04-30 14:36:23

Re: [Solved] Blank screen using lightdm

#10 2012-04-30 16:22:27

Re: [Solved] Blank screen using lightdm

#11 2012-05-02 01:30:52

Re: [Solved] Blank screen using lightdm

#12 2012-05-02 02:05:52

Re: [Solved] Blank screen using lightdm

#13 2012-05-02 08:08:40

Re: [Solved] Blank screen using lightdm

#14 2012-05-02 12:36:17

Re: [Solved] Blank screen using lightdm

#15 2012-05-03 09:20:07

Re: [Solved] Blank screen using lightdm

#16 2012-05-12 14:08:05

Re: [Solved] Blank screen using lightdm

#17 2012-05-13 02:41:17

Re: [Solved] Blank screen using lightdm

#18 2012-05-18 18:29:46

Re: [Solved] Blank screen using lightdm

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